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(lass E4-5^ 
Book .4 



THE PRESIDENT, THE PEOPLE, AND THE WAR. 




REV. HORATIO STEBBINS, 



MIXISTER fW THE FIRST UXITARI.OJ SOCIETY IN SAN FRANCISCO. 



SAN FRANCISCO 



CHARLES F. ROBBINS & CO., PRINTERS, *16 BATTERY STREET. 

1864. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Rev. Horatio Stebbixs: 

Deak Sik. — The undersigned, having heard 
your discourse, delivered on Thanksgiving Day, respectfully solicit a 
copy for pn))lication. We believe there are thousands of our fellow- 
citizens who in the heat and passion of the recent political conflict, failed 
to comprehend the important issues involved, and will now calmly re- 
view the ground, and discover that they have been fighting against God, 
and that in the future, as in the past, they can never reasonably hope to 
gain in such a conflict. We desire that every I'easonable and honest man 
should carefully read your discourse, it cannot fail to confirm the faithful, 
and extend the triumph of those principles which are more important 
fhan the success of any political jtarty. 

JAME8 WILSON, 
F. F. LOW, 
R. B. SWAIN. 
J. 1). P.. STILL.MAN. 
San Francisco. Nov. 2.")th. ls(i4. 



930 Ci.AY Street. Nov. 2)i. I8i;4. 
Gentlemen, — I am very glad if anything I said seemed to you sensi- 
ble, — I am sure it is very unequal to the theme, and will gain nothing 
from the art of printing. — But what of that, if it will do anybody any 

good ? 

I am yours truly, 

HORATIO STEBBINS. 

Gen. James Wilson, Gov. Low. and others. 



SERMON. 



2nd Samuel, xi. 7. David demanded how Joab did, and how the 
people did, and how the war prospered. 

The proclamation of the President, seconded by 
the Grovernor of the State, calHng the people to 
grateful recognition of that Almighty Providence, 
which controls the affairs of men, comes at a pro- 
pitious hour. It is as if the great family of states 
and people, passing through great trials of tears 
and midnight agony, seeing the dawn of their 
deliverance, were called to kneel around the 
common hearthstone, in prayer and reverent joy 
and gratitude. For most surely, if the good are 
disposed to thank God always, they are especially 
disposed to, when summoned by the signal tokens 
of his power and guidance; and if there are com- 
mon sentiments in all hearts, which rise in triumph- 
ant gladness, as if swayed by a superior power, 
their natural, though unaccustomed expression is, 
that there is a Providence in the affairs of men. 
It would be a manifest wrong and gross violence 
to this occasion, to introduce any other theme than 



ti THAXKS(;ivi.\(; DisrounsK. 

tliat which has engrossed our minds and liearts and 
strength, for the past four years, and whicli has 
summoned us in these hitter days, to strike one 
more l)h)w for God and the country. 

My suhject is assigned me. and 1 liave only to 
accei»t it : And I will intjuii-e, concerning the 
President, tiie people, and the \v:ir. 

Individual men have no importance in events like 
these, save as they are the natui-al exponents of 
events and of tlie spii'it of a })eople. It is a happy 
circumstance, on the whole, that our President is. 
in his origin, endowments and education, a fair ex- 
pression of our American life and civilization. He 
is a fair expression of the style and quality of men, 
which our social life and civil polity make. If he 
was of humble origin, in contrast witli the estate 
of kings, he surely was in company with all the 
people, and sliared their lot from the beginning. 
If his frame was knit and his nuiscles i)ractised in 
early conllict with many obstacles, he was surely 
schooled in that conmion teaching where all salient 
[)ower gets its training. If he stood forth at 
length, in the full stature of an American citizen, 
it was l)ecause he was nourished from those com- 
mon fountains which feed the life of all. W he is 
to-day the most American man, on the whole, in 
the country, it is l)ecause he was born to an Amer- 
ican lot, and has been recipient of American ideas. 
If he is an American by nature, it is because the 
spii-it of American institutions mingle in his life. 



THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 7 

and flow in his blood. Not all men who are born 
in America are Americans thus. It is a style of 
constitution, not a place of birth. It is a happy 
thing for the American people, that the President 
is an American, at the very fountains of his blood. 
In view of tliis, we may all feel a kind of loyalty 
to him. He is the personification of our idea, and 
the eye rests on him with rejoicing admiration and 
gratitude. I will neither allow low aspersion nor 
honest criticism to impair my profound respect. 
I do not claim for him the full circle of human 
powers, but I claim for him those powers and qual- 
ities which inspire confidence and security and 
trust. Coming in obedience to the call of the peo- 
ple, from a career comparatively unknown, (the 
condition of the bulk of the talent and the ability 
of the country,) he has shown no sign of giddy 
height, neither has he lost his simplicity. He is 
the same man , untouched by honors or convention- 
alities ; than which, there is no better sign of a 
characteristic nature. What round-about common 
sense ! What patience ! What hope ! What belief! 
What wise conservatism, that knows that large mas- 
ses of men cannot be brought to act on extreme 
measures, except in extreme conditions ! What 
simplicity, and absence of all ambition, in the use 
of power ! What childlike acknowledgement that 
he has done nothing but follow events ! What 
integrity ! What shrewdness ! What wit ! What 
tenderness of heart ! During the four years now 



THANKSOIVIX(J DISCOURSE. 

concluding, he has gained in the confidence and 
respect of men. And when I say that of a Pres- 
ident of tlie I'nited ^States, assailed, abused, mis- 
re})resented, hindered, as he always is, by those 
who have no olhce but to speak evil, and found 
all their hopes on lii.s fall ; when I say, that in 
spite of all this, our President has gained in the 
confidence and respect of the country, I award 
to him tlio sublimest honors of moral victory 
over men ! Tliercfore I rejoice in liini, as the 
exi)Onent of the people, and as a part of God's 
})rovidence with the coiuitry. 

If it had been hnown in May of 1860, at the Chi- 
cago convention, that the country would be called 
to pass through these trials, could that conven- 
tion, by the exercise of any human wit or fore- 
cast, have made a better choice ? Speaking in 
the light of past events, could the jieople, on 
the whole, have had a fairer exponent ? The 
question at issue w^as not whether the Amer- 
ican people could be led by a great and flashing 
brain, but whether they could, by instinct of na- 
tionality, adjusted to intelHgence and public virtue, 
save the country ? The government takes its in- 
spiration from the people. The event which 
initiated tlie war (the fall of Sumter) was little 
more than a symi)tom of treason, in a case not yet 
fully develoi)ed. Hence the call for seventy-five 
thousand troo})s for three months. The Govern- 
ment was, like a jtliysician, unable to treat the case 



THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 9 

until its elements were more distinct and manifest, 
or rather, treating the patient before the disease 
had assumed its type. There was a great deal 
which required time to develop, and concern- 
ing which the more haste the less speed. The 
Government must feel for its foundations, and find 
its indorsers. Where were the people ? Would 
they stand supporting the Government which their 
own hands had made, now pushed to hard extrem- 
ity ? A popular government can do nothing un- 
til it has felt its constituency. It must take its 
primary orders from the people, and while it stands, 
the instrument of the people's will, and before 
them in deed, it must be behind them in thought. 
It has been sometimes complained that the Pre- 
sident is slow, and not up with popular feeling. 
There is where the Government must be, so long 
as it is a popular constitutional government. Des- 
potism has this advantage, that it assumes unity of 
action all at once, and is not obliged to wait to take 
counsel of the governed. Its ordinary power is so 
near akin to the military, that it merges in that 
with a flash of the sword. A chief reason why the 
insurgents have seemed so much more ready and 
swift than we, is that their form of society is oli- 
garchic, blending into despotism. There is no 
middle class ; there is no popular will ; but a few 
men have managed in their own way. Such a 
power is nimbler, for it has the sword in hand, 
fights impetuously, and, when it has done with 



10 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 

lighting, if successful, it falls back on the authority 
of the sword. The constitutional power rises 
slowly, and of its own free will. It finds its way 
into organic forms by the patient method of order 
and law, till at length its overwhelming weight 
rolls huge and crushing. And when its power is 
confessed, like a refluent wave it rolls back, and 
Ijreaks in peaceful rip[)les at the feet of the State. 
True, a constitutional government, when it has 
gathered up its forces in concentrated unity, may 
have something of grandeur of conception and 
brilliancy of exploit ; but, in its normal, working 
condition, it is a many-handed talented power, with 
no glimmer of genius or inspiration around its 
head. It cannot be a Napoleon or a Garibaldi — 
neither despot nor liberator. Of all this our Presi- 
dent is the natural exponent ; not officially merely, 
but because the idea and spirit of republican insti- 
tutions flow in his veins. And, with this idea fully 
possessed by him, the Government has shown an 
elasticity never before known to constitutional 
forms. History does not afford a parallel. 

In this thorough and complete identity of the 
President with republican democratic institutions, 
I recognize the providential man. Therefore, when 
I inquire and demand, in the light of reason and 
intelligence, in the hght of our institutions, in the 
light of events, how it is with the President of the 
United States, I answer, with gratitude and thanks- 
giving. It is well ! and let all the people say Amen ! 



THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 11 

The American people have just concluded the 
last act in the bloody drama of national life. It 
was necessary, in the divine purpose, that this 
people's discipline should come round full circle — 
that, asserting their principle at the ballot-box at 
first, they should endure the consequences of that 
affirmation, and come again to the quiet crucial 
test of reason and intelligence. That test they 
have met, and the result is one of the sublimest 
passages of human history. To the philosopher, 
the statesman, or the patriot, it must appear as 
one of the great acts of time, by which man, under 
God, determines the course of centuries. 

Let us state to ourselves, for the sake of having 
it compassed in our intelligence, what was included 
in the great election which we have just made. 

First of all, it was a test of the power of a con- 
stitutional government, based on popular choice, 
to carry on a protracted war, bear its burdens, 
and, in the midst of great social trials and disturb- 
ance, to come, with steadiness, once more to the 
calm assertion of principles. The private griefs 
and the public burdens entailed by war, so tend to 
throw society into discontent, that they furnish 
ready fuel for the moral incendiary who pictures 
to the people their hardships and wrongs, and 
strives to inflame the minds of men by telling them 
that they are abused. It exposes society to the 
catch-words of selfishness, glossed with cheap vir- 
tues — thus diverting the public mind from those 



12 THAXKStJIVrXG DISCOURSE. 

great principles which protect all, to the inconve- 
niences or trials of the individual. Wlien the cit- 
izen has a voice in the affairs of government — 
when, by his vote, he can modify the policy of 
governmental administration, and relieve himself 
of real or imaginary evils — will he assume and sus- 
tain great social principles, and bear the burdens 
which they entail ? The fear of the world has been 
that he would not : — that the instinct of national- 
ity, the idea of government, was not so fixed in 
his intelligence as to hold him to a steady, unfal- 
tering adherence to a principle of government 
through a protracted season of disturbance and 
war. The fear is natural. It is the same solici- 
tude which we feel concerning the conduct of indi- 
vidual men in the ordinary commerce of life — if 
his principle costs anything, will he hold to it ? 
And the solicitude is increased in the collective 
life of man, inasmuch as the principle is removed 
from personal relations, and diffused through soci- 
ety. There is many a man who would hold to 
right in his personal and private conduct, but 
would not see the principle so clearly, nor hold to 
it so firmly, if it were lifted up and expanded to 
social breadth and comprehensiveness. We our- 
selves, with sure instinct, felt the danger. When 
the war first broke out, the country flashed in a 
blaze of undivided sentiment. We all felt that 
if we could be united, all would be well. We 
feared division and controversy at home, more than 



THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 13 

we feared the insurrection. And those among us 
in open sympathy or covert conspiracy with the 
rebelHon, assured its leaders that we could be dis- 
tracted by controversy, thus drawing the war into 
northern fields, and pitching its battles in the 
streets of New England towns. The doctrine of 
all that intrigue was, that the people could be com- 
pelled to let go the principle they had asserted ; 
that the national sentiment could be scattered by 
weak and selfish fears. However desirable undi- 
vided opinion might have been, however ardently 
we hoped for it at the beginning, time and events 
have shown that it was too much to expect. As 
the war went on, it developed its own principles, 
and its own policy. The first flush of patriotic 
sentiment which went over the land, was little more 
than the blood rising to the cheek of insulted hon- 
or. The principles involved, were not yet unfold- 
ed or displayed. It was proposed to defend the 
Capital, but high-spirited volunteers declined to 
go beyond the limits of the District. It was im- 
possible that a sentiment, simply based on the fact 
of an outrage on the flag, should hold long in un- 
broken unity. It did not take hold of the real is- 
sues. The war itself must move forward, events 
must pass, before the country can find its princi- 
ples. 

There was also the remains of a disorganized 
party, stung with the loss of prestige, and loss of 
its better half, in the rebellion itself. All the lim- 



14 THANKSGIYTNOt DISCOURSE'. 

bei" and athletic men. who could at a bound go 
clear of tlie old alliances and party prejudices, 
sprung to the loyal cause, leaving those who re- 
mained, in still deeper chagrin, and in a more bit- 
ter determination, if they could not move heaven, 
to stir up hell. 

To expect to prosecute the war on an undivided 
sentiment, was expecting too much. It was not to 
be. As our arms advanced, and oiu' bayonets 
flashed in the southern sun, they revealed the ne- 
gro slave in the covert fastnesses of society, plying 
all the industries, and thus enabling the whole 
white population, of ability to bear arms, to go 
to the field. It was plain, that the war had its 
roots in slavery, and received its sustenance from 
slavery. 

This was to be met, and met on its own ground. 
The signal of any policy concerning slavery, was 
the rallying cry of the disorganized party. It 
Icnew its own, and was true to its bantling, as a 
she-bear to her whelps. Hurt that, and a snufF 
and howl of brute agony rends the air. It was not 
possible that the war should be prosecuted on an 
undivided sentiment. There was to be bitterness 
and acrimony. The administration was to be ma- 
ligned, the President was to be abused as a pick- 
pocket. In short, all passions of pride and hate 
and disappointed ambition were to hold carnival, 
before this party, scarred in many wars, could con- 
fess it was to die. And it was natural. It was no 



IHANKSGIYING DISCOURSE. 15 

more than we might have expected, if we had all 
the elements of the case before us at the begin- 
ing. 

Without all this, the election which has just 
passed, would not be the triumph that it is. It 
was a part of the complete experience of the peo- 
ple ; and never was the display of public sentiment 
so august and imposing. Can the cause of the 
country be disputed, argued, controverted, and 
still be defended, and her honor borne aloft by a 
loving, admiring people ? The rebellion could af- 
ford to have no such controversy concerning its 
cause. Therefore I am compelled to believe, that, 
as much as party strife and division were to be 
deplored at the beginning, on the whole it is well, 
and a great gain to loyalty and public virtue. If 
we had been defeated, defeat would have had this 
bitter comfort at least, that we deserved it, even 
to being moved from our place, and our candle 
put out. 

But, amid all this, have the people preserved 
their liberties ? The controversy has been carried 
on, upon one side, by bold and somewhat striking 
affirmations that popular liberty was cloven down. 
The very fact of an open controversy would seem 
to give a sufficient answer to that charge. There 
is a class of men who have cast vile aspersions 
upon the G-overnment — laughed at the country's 
calamity — traduced all public virtue ; and, to give 
climax to audacity, they have affirmed that free- 



K) IHANKSGfYLVfi DISCOTJjRSE. 

•loni of speech was cloven down. Xewpapjers. 
which have endeavored to pervert and befog pub- 
He intelhgence, and throw all obstacles in the way 
of the Administration, have affirmed that liberty 
of the press was at an end. Who has the Govern- 
ment wronged ? What man tlial loved the coun- 
try has been injured in his rights, his person, or 
his property ? What loyal man would not be will- 
ing to sutler if public suspicion rested on him, if so 
he might vindicate his loyal love ? The presump- 
tion is, that the man who complains of being op- 
pressed deser\^es it. The truth is, there are hun- 
dreds of men at large to-day, in Northern cities. 
well known to the Government to be plotting 
treason, whose indemnity from arrest and impris- 
onment can be accounted for only on the conscious 
strength of the Government. If the Administra- 
tion were weaker, it would be more extreme. 
These accusations of tyranny and usurpation are 
absurd. It may be a dozen men have been im- 
prisoned for counseling resistance, or forging the 
names of officers of the Government. In any other 
country besides our own, a hundred dozen would 
have been arrested ; and they would have not onl}- 
been arrested, they would have been executed. 
The Government — parental, wise, benignant and 
powerful — forgot not. neither abandoned its own 
nature, but has been patient m endurance, and 
kind in persuasion. It has been wise, and liberal, 
and humane ; no tliirst for blood, no swift and 



THANKSGIVINCx DISCOURSE. 17 

howling vengeance, but calm and deliberate jus- 
tice, and counsel for the public good. The Gov- 
ernment is guilty of no passionate word or act. 
Instead of a thousand rebels dangling on summary 
gibbets, it has said, "Stand up, and show cause 
why the war should not go on. We appeal to the 
people and mankind !" Personal liberty, under the 
law, was never so safe as it is to-day. 

The people, in the election, have shown to the 
great powers of the earth, in the most unequivocal 
manner, what this nation means. It may be that 
we do not completely understand the indecisive 
0|)inion of the governments of the Old World con- 
cerning us. Those governments have been most 
assiduously plied by rebel emissaries, and a sub- 
sidized press, with repeated affirmations that the 
war would not be sustained by the people of the 
country. A false impression has been made by an 
embassy of adroit men, who, by every machination 
of artifice and cunning, have endeavored to hold 
the opinion of the world in abeyance. Nothing 
could correct that impression but a popular elec- 
tion, promoting the Administration, and urging on 
the war. And it may be fairly inferred now, that 
even those nations that are dull of hearing and 
slow of apprehension, are no longer in doubt con- 
cerning our purpose, or our ability to accomplish 
it. The world knows what we mean to-day ; until 
now she has only guessed it, or wondered if it 

could be true. This is a vast moral gain toward 
c 



18 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 

the conclusion of tlie war, and the peace of the 
civilized world. It is a gain, toward the conclu- 
sion of i\\Q war, by its effect upon opinion at home 
and abroad. It is a security of the peace of the 
world, inasmuch as it displays a powerful and 
magnanimous nation, able to preserve itself. 

But the people have not only accomplished this 
vast gQod by the election, but they have prevent- 
ed unspeakable evils. A change of administra- 
tion, merely as change, would have thrown the 
country into the wildest confusion. Business, al- 
ready apprehensive and careful of inevitable recoil, 
would have been without chart, or star, or com- 
pass. A new policy, without much regard to its 
merits, would Ije an uncertain policy, and put 
every man staring at his neighbor. The four 
months intervening between the election and the 
coming in of the new administration, would be 
really an interregnum. The outgoing adminis- 
tration would be powerless, and the incoming 
would not yet be in office. It would result in a 
total paralysis of the affairs of the country, not 
only naval and military, but civil. 

But we have not only avoided the confusion 
and prostration which would ensue upon a change 
of administration : we have avoided a great fraud 
concealed in the cry for the Union. It may not 
have occurred to all to think, tJiat Union means a 
dual confederacy, with a chimerical alliance offen- 
sive and defensive. To have lost our cause would 



THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 19 

have been the loss of our country as a nation, and 
the deUberate devotion of a large portion of the 
continent to human slavery. 

Therefore, if it be demanded to know how the 
American People are, I reply : The American Peo- 
ple, devoted to constitutional liberty and the rights 
of man, in the sobriety of reason and intelligence, 
affirmed a principle concerning the affairs .of this 
Government ! The support and defence of that 
principle has involved them in a war of so vast 
dimensions, whether in the area over which it is 
carried on, or in the blood and treasure it has cost. 
that modern history furnishes no parallel ! After 
three years and a half of its toils and griefs, they 
re-affirm their principle and their purpose, in the 
still and steady might of conscious rectitude, intel- 
ligence and patriotism! And let all the nations 
say amen! 

The progress of the war furnishes abundant 
cause of gratitude and hope. If it can be said 
that such dreadful work eve7' prospers, we can say 
the war prospers well. > It shrinks like a cooling 
ring of fire around the rebellion, and augments its 
strength by joining the black man to the armies of 
freedom, to fight for himself, his country, and his 
race. It has already wrested more than two- thirds 
of the rebel territory from the insurgent grasp. 
The States of Maryland, Western Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louis- 
iana, have been recovered. Three thousand five 



-'J THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 

liiuulred miles of coast have been held in blockade, 
and ahnost two hundred jDorts, inlets, and river- 
mouths closed— only one, the Cape Fear River, 
being open to-da}-. All the fortresses on the coast, 
and at the tide-waters of the great rivers, are in 
our possession, or in ruius, save one on the coast 
of Xorth Carolina. The great river floats a loyal 
connnerce, from the Xorthern bluffs to the Gulf of 
Mexico. Atlanta, the most important inland posi- 
tion, by brilliant i)erformance, unsurpassed, has 
faHen into our hands ; and Sherman, with his in- 
trepid army, is marching through South Carolina, 
and bringing home the curses of Secession to roost 
where they were hatched. Nothing remains but 
the capture of llichmoiid, and the more complete 
possession of Cape Fear River— and the rebellion 
is crushed. If you will take the map and trace 
the lines of conquest and occupation by the loyal 
army, you will see what General Grant affirms 
the literal truth, '' The rebelhon is but a shell." 

In the meantime, our navy, with a bright gal- 
axy of immortal names, has achieved deeds of 
skill and heroism that must live in history to the 
end of time. We know not which most to admire, 
the genius and skill of contrivance displayed in our 
ships, or the brilliancy of exploit. We have ex- 
temporized a navy at the rate of a ship-of-war a 
day, for a hundred days, and we float more seamen 
by one-fourtli than England. AVho will say that 
the war has ad\-aiiced doivhj, even, when its vast 



IS 



THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 21 

area and marvellous performance are considered ? 
The war is near its end ! and the election which 
we have just been through is worth a hundred 
strongholds or pitched battles. I am no prophet, 
neither am I impatient of those great causes which 
are at the bottom of all social change — but the war 
is near its end. The military and political power 
of the governing class in the rebellion will be bro- 
ken, and the people will find themselves under the 
protection of the Flag ; and they will weep at their 
delusion, and thank God that they have been saved 
as by fire from the power of their misguided pas- 
sions and wicked leaders. 

Parishioners and Citizens : I congratulate you 
on the rising glory of the Republic ! High above 
the scoff and scorn of Treason, she stands as a 
creature of immortal beauty! Let us teach our 
children to love her, and to feel that a lot beneath 
her protection is the noblest inheritance of men ! 
As men of business and good citizens, I counsel 
you religiously not to push your affairs to any un- 
lawful ambitions, or overreaching selfishness ; but 
bear in mind that the great destructiveness of war, 
creating for an hour a great expansion of the ma- 
chinery of exchange, must have its recoil ; that 
recoil must be felt and borne by all. Let us re- 
member to bear it well, and by wise discretion and 
liberal views, do all in our power to avert its dis- 
turbing force. The finances of the country are 
prosperous — our debt is our own, and the Govern- 



•2.2 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 

mcnt pays interest to its sons and daughters. So 
soon as we can reach the level of affairs, and bring 
our vast resources into play, no man will feel op- 
pressed or burdened. 

I congratulate you to-day that this Thanksgiv- 
ing, which had its origin in the religious temper of 
the Fathers, is thus enlarged to this National 
breadth and grace! As the families of the countr}' 
gather in festive circles, how naturally do our minds 
rise into kindred patriotic sympathy and gratitude ! 
And how are the sorrows of the land soothed, by 
the thought that the spirit of a noble people, bends 
in tender respect, over every soldier's grave, 
breathes its loving pity at every fireside, and en- 
folds all the sick and wounded and dying in its hu- 
mane compassion. Let us enlarge our tender im- 
agination, that we may sit down indeed with an 
innumerable company ! let us be in kindred sym- 
pathy with all conditions of human lot, and let 
the spirits of the good and immortal glide in at 
the door unseen, and take their places with us, 
and whisper their better thoughts and diviner 
knowledge. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




JJH4 



